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Esar comments on Firewalling the Optimal from the Rational - Less Wrong
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That's a good point, but I think there are stricter conditions on the goodness of patriotism than merely consequential ones. I'm not sure how to articulate this, but as a disposition, patriotism is enough like a belief that it ought to be true, and not just beneficial.
Hm.
I understand how patriotism might be a beneficial belief if my country is good and harmful otherwise.
But you seem to be suggesting that patriotism is true if my country is good and false otherwise.
Which suggests to me that we aren't using the word "patriotism" the same way.
Am I correct in inferring that, on your view, "X is patriotic" entails "X believes X's country is good"?
So I suppose patriotism is a kind of love. We could call a love good if the lover has good reason to think the beloved worthy of love and if the love is on the whole a benefit to lover and beloved. Your initial remark was that that patriotism can be good independently of the goodness of its object, because it can be a benefit. I think this captures one half of the above, both leaves out the 'worthiness' part. In other words, I think patriotism has to involve something like knowledge of the moral goodness of one's country. It's in that respect that patriotism is concerned with truth, rather than just with benefit.
In my experience with it, patriotism usually seems closer to a kind of hate. It does make people feel good about themselves, though.
It looks more like you aren't using the word true the same way.
Perhaps?
I'm content to accept that ""X is patriotic" entails "X believes X's country is good"" => "X's patriotism is true only if X's country is good". This is admittedly an extended sense of "true", to mean something like "does not entail falsehoods," but I'm willing to work with it.
I would accept those, or at least continue the conversation without commenting, although I'd squirm rather a lot at the final one. What I couldn't accept is "patriotism is true".